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Talk:Rufus Q Shupilluliumash
An Amazon review of Federations refers to "that thing with the hamster and the throne rooms (I refuse to call it a story) . . . " I knew it was shit while I was reading it, but not until I had to summarize it did I realize just what an affront to good taste it really is. And I'm probably going to have to reread significant portions of it to get the articles written. As for Rufus, everything about him is annoying, but oddly what stands out most is that you're supposed to sing his ridiculous last name to the tune of "Fascinatin' Rhythm." Now I happen to know that song because I like all the old crooner/swinger stuff, but it's still an annoying song. And these days it's obscure as fuck. Who's going to find such an obscure-ass reference funny? Someone else can do the templates on these characters. I refuse to have anything more to do with them than is absolutely necessary. Turtle Fan 02:37, February 10, 2010 (UTC) :Ok, just make sure you leave enough info to make the templates possible. Doesn't sound like we need that much. TR 02:46, February 10, 2010 (UTC) ::There are only three characters whose names are given, and even they barely count as characters: Rufus, Utnapishtim, and Albert O'Saurus (That one I have to say I did enjoy). Also Turtledove, I guess, and Lindbergh, if we'd like. The unnamed ones are way too insignificant for us to bother with. ::Rufus here: Name Rufus Q Shup-blah blah blah, story SISTGTROTG, Species Hamster, Occupation Space Cadet, Affiliation Space Patrol. Utnapishtim, same story except occupation is captain. For Al O'Saurus we have only his name and species. Not sure what occupation he is; he was Rufus's tour guide of the vandalized palace, but I can't imagine that's a full-time gig. He might have been in law enforcement, he might have been in the Tourism Ministry, he might have been some sort of palace chamberlain. Turtle Fan 04:02, February 10, 2010 (UTC) :And we'll get a Charles Lindbergh article out of it. Yay?TR 02:48, February 10, 2010 (UTC) ::That's another one of the little rewards that kept this stupid story from becoming unbearably so. Turtle Fan 04:02, February 10, 2010 (UTC) So, this Rufus goes planet A, is arrested, is released, investigates, insults the planet, is arrested, and expelled. And he does this about three times. That's the story? Was HT poking fun at his own propensity for repetition? TR 21:24, February 10, 2010 (UTC) :The French only arrested him once, and what for I couldn't say. On each of the other planets he was arrested for puns, but he made no puns against the French. It was probably HT's way of saying the French are dicks. :As for what was going through HT's head, I was wondering that myself. I couldn't believe my eyes in TGS when he said the whole story was about Hamnet boning Marcovefa in her sleep; I assumed the Opening of the World series hadn't turned out as he'd thought it would, he wrote himself into a corner, lost interest, and just came up with whatever he could think of. Perhaps the most outrageous ending he could come up with as a deliberate disavowal of the project. Unprofessional in the extreme, I'd argue bordering on unethical since he then sold the book to people who didn't realize he hadn't bothered trying. But at least I could come up with an explanation. :This, now, this just boggles the mind. I can't conceive of why HT thought this would work. Especially since he's done comedies with a similar feel that were both clever and funny. So hard to imagine this was written the same year as EIaK. Turtle Fan 22:14, February 10, 2010 (UTC) Lucky Pierre I was wondering what HT was referring to when he described Rufus as "luckier than Lucky Pierre." Turns out that, in a gay threeway, Lucky Pierre is the man in the middle, who gets to have sex with both the others at once. Makes this dumb story even more endearing, doesn't it? Turtle Fan 03:47, February 6, 2012 (UTC) :My wanderings have turned up a nudie/exploitation film from the 1960s by that name. It's about a guy who basically runs around looking at naked women. :He might have just used it because he heard it once without any idea of its actual meaning (see, e.g. Robert Browning's "Pippa Passes"). TR 18:04, February 6, 2012 (UTC) ::My version comes from the first hit on Bing, the fine folks at Urban Dictionary, who admittedly do have a tendency to list as their first definition the most sensationalist of all possible options. The gay threeway is known as a "French Sandwich," hence Pierre. What with the story's Francophobic theme and all . . . ::Amusingly, I once knew a teenager who led a somewhat sheltered life and whose parents tried to shield him from many of the harsh realities of our world. One time there was a radio playing in the background and the DJ mentioned menage et trois. Says the kid "I've heard of that! It's a kind of French sandwich!" Had I known then what I know now, I could have responded with "Actually, it's the other way around." I wouldn't have, of course, but I could have. ::Anyway, if there is a film, we have another Literary/Cultural Reference or whatever we're going to start calling it. Turtle Fan 21:09, February 6, 2012 (UTC)